Tyranny
by hilarityallen
Summary: Minerva reflects on being a woman.


Written for the HP Voices and Vaginas Challenge

Periods are strange creatures. Of course I was at Hogwarts when I first had mine. I felt so excited at 'becoming a woman'. It seems silly now, because of course you're not a woman at thirteen; I don't think I became a woman until I was nearly thirty, if I ever did. But it seemed so important. I wasn't terribly late in starting, just a little later than most of my classmates. Those first rust-coloured stains seemed so important.

I didn't learn about sex or anatomy or physiology from my parents. My mother knew I would learn it at school. Some of my Muggle friends were shocked that we would have lessons about the mechanics of sex and reproduction; in their world it seemed that this was something too private to talk about. But then, they don't seem to have the worry of dying out. Wizards and witches are encouraged to have children; the school makes sure that they know what they're doing.

Oddly enough, this means we seem to be free of a certain amount of male tyranny. We know how sex is meant to work, that it can be for pleasure. And clever witches can work out how not to have sex. So I knew what was going to happen to me. And I was all ready - I had a slender pad ready and the cleaning spell. It seems that witches have it better than Muggles - as a housemistress I see them bringing all sorts of things with them, until they discover they don't need it. Huge great bulky pads, or those strange tampon things. I understand they can be quite dangerous. I felt so proud to have started.

Soon it changed. I began to get twinges in my abdomen. Fair enough. I had read the books in the library and 'some women may experience cramping pains from time to time'. I could handle it; after all I played Quidditch, and that's not the softest sport in the world. Then it started cramping in earnest. I'm glad I never had children if it's worse pain than cramps, though they give you painkilling mists for that. The first time it happened in earnest the pain was so bad I started to throw up, and I didn't realise that it wasn't a stomach bug, but just my period.

Cramps dogged me from my fourth year on. I nearly passed out a couple of times. I never bothered trying for the Quidditch team, as there were too many days that I couldn't move from the pain, or I was drugged out on painkilling potions. Even those stopped working perfectly, and there weren't any more I could take, without using opioid bases. And you can't take those for long without getting addicted. So suffering seemed to be a woman's lot. I mostly didn't grumble about it - I deluded myself into thinking it was normal. My woman's joy had become a tyranny.

It wasn't until I was doing my apprenticeship that I heard of an experimental potion that would help. Insofar as I understand it, it seems to be an equivalent to what Muggles call 'the pill'. It has tamed the monster to something that claws, but not excessively. I am glad that I've never had what the Muggles call PMT. I suppose witches do now too - it's certainly spreading as a term in the Gryffindor commonroom. But I wait each month for the pain, and eat phenomenal quantities of chocolate. The school thinks Remus Lupin's the one with the chocolate obsession. I just hide it better. But my potion requires constant adjustment - the monster will keep coming back to me. I never feel quite right on it, and witches are fertile for much longer than Muggles. I'm often slightly bemused on painkilling potion. I'm glad that things have improved for me, but then again, I wonder 'why me'? What have I done to deserve this pain? It seems worse for me than for others. For other people, their womb seems a wonderful expression of their womanhood. It's a sign of their fertility; their vagina is a seat of pleasure. For me, a source of pain, an exit for gore. It's not like I'm not able to experience sexual pleasure, but I've never had a long-term lover. For me, the monthly routine dominates. I don't think about it all the time, but the potion is part of my morning routine, and every month I feel a disappointed resentment. I laugh bitterly at my thirteen-year-old self, who had desperately wished to have her period, who had talked it over with a friend in a different year, proudly comparing our stained knickers. I never let my period affect my academic work, and to be unable to play Quidditch for the house - if I'm honest with myself, I wasn't good enough for that anyway. I still loved flying and did so frequently. I dislike it that I feel resentment about one of the physical things that makes me a woman.

I'm a successful witch in a powerful position, but I wonder what I could have been without the tyrant.


End file.
